Our response to the UK Government

Thank you to all campaigners who have taken action to cancel Pakistan’s unjust and unpayable debts in the wake of the terrible natural disaster which that country has experienced.

Many thousands of people have taken action so far and over 150,000 people worldwide, through our website and those of partners including Jubilee South, Oxfam, ONE campaign, Eurodad and Avaaz. Read the campaign latest >>

UK Government responds to the campaign

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, and the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, have now responded to the campaign on behalf of the UK Government. You can read their response on the DfID website.

The response proves there is still a good deal of work to do, as the British Government does not support debt cancellation for Pakistan at present.

TAKE ACTION

We urge you to write to the Government and your MP, making clear your ongoing support for debt cancellation for Pakistan. Please feel free to include any of the points below.

• We are pleased with the emergency response of DfID to the disaster in Pakistan, though very disappointed that some of the International Financial Institutions, including the IMF, have chosen to make new loans, rather than giving grants and offering debt relief to Pakistan. In some cases, these loans are simply ‘recycling’ debt – i.e. giving Pakistan more money now so that it can pay its existing debt to those institutions. In other words, they are a means of keeping Pakistan in debt. As such it is very unlikely that these new loans will provide ‘additional resources’ for the country.
  
  QUESTIONS: Do you support the use of grants rather than loans to Pakistan and what will you do to ensure these IMF and World Bank convert their loans into grant aid?
• We are disappointed that you do not believe debt relief “to be the most effective way to support Pakistan at this time”. We note that the “Pakistan authorities are not requesting debt relief”, but as you well know, this is because they fear the impact on international markets would have a detrimental effect on the country’s economy. This is no reason, therefore, for Pakistan’s borrowers not to give debt cancellation.
  
  Far from harming Pakistan’s economy, this would strengthen it and, in all likelihood, bring borrowing rates down. Moreover, Pakistan would not need to borrow so much money if there were not such high rates of debt to repay.
• You state that “Pakistan is a middle income country” unlike Haiti. But Pakistan has only become ‘middle income’ in the last year, and may well fall down the table again next year as a result of this disaster. It is a disgrace that Pakistan was judged ineligible for HIPC debt relief, given that 60% of people live below the poverty line, 54% are illiterate and 38% of small children are underweight.
  
  Ongoing debts will continue to mean that the poorest are kept poor in Pakistan as resources are used for debt repayments rather than to provide basic services to ordinary people.
• We appreciate your attempts to “encourage the Government of Pakistan to improve its own efforts to increase resources available for poverty reduction”; Pakistan is beset by governance problems, many of which have been caused or exacerbated by foreign debt. Neither an increase in indirect taxation nor removal of subsidies are the fairest ways to increase government revenues – they will hit poorer people hardest. Debt cancellation, however, if spent fighting poverty and made transparent and accountable to civil society, could certainly benefit the poorest most.
  
  QUESTIONS: Do you accept that accountability and good governance have been undermined in Pakistan by reckless lending, externally imposed conditions and high levels of debt and external conditionality? If so, isn’t it both just and logical to relieve those debts? What are you doing to ensure the IMF’s economic conditions on Pakistan are dropped, in line with British government policy on conditionality?
• Finally, we are disappointed that you do not mentioned the justice of Pakistan’s debts. Most debts were run up by non-democratic governments and spent in ways which did not benefit ordinary people.
  
  QUESTIONS: Do you believe that ‘creditors’ bear some responsibility for their lending decisions? How are you working to enshrine the principle of creditor co-responsibility into international lending? Do you believe that democracy in Pakistan would be enhanced if civil society were to be given full details of the debts they are currently repaying and had a voice in whether such repayment was ethically justified? What are you doing to encourage such empowerment of people in Pakistan?

Contact details 

You can write to the ministers at the following addresses:

HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London
SW1A 2HQ

Department for International Development
1 Palace Street
London
SW1E 5HE

You can write to your MP via WriteToThem.com or at:

House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Thank you for your ongoing support of this campaign. We will keep you updated of developments.

CAMPAIGN LATEST >>